By Mary Lou Greenberg
The battle over abortion is being joined in South Dakota where voters will decide next week whether or not to keep the most restrictive law in the country outlawing all abortions except to prevent a woman’s death. When I learned that a rally was scheduled for Wednesday (yesterday) by the Campaign for Healthy Families, the main group organizing opposition to the law, I began making plans to go. Thanks to a friend’s frequent flyer miles, I was soon on my way to Sioux Falls.
The morning after I arrived, I met Campaign volunteers at their
office and walked with them to the rally. It was only a few blocks
away, outside the Sioux Falls Federal Courthouse, but in 29 degree
temperature and a brisk wind it felt much farther. But a good crowd of
about 125 soon gathered, including students from several area colleges
and universities and women and men who had either taken off work or
come on their lunch hour.
The mood was definitely upbeat, and
the only dissenting voice was a man who jumped up on a low stone
railing and began shouting that women who supported abortion were
“whores” and that abortion kills babies. Two young men quickly jumped
up beside him and covered his sign with their own that urged people to
“Vote No on 6.” The anti’s voice was soon drowned out by an impressive
diversity of speakers who each, in a few sentences, described who they
were and then ended by saying, “that’s why I’m voting no on Referred
Law 6.” They included a medical student, a state representative, a
teacher, a college student, a professional businesswoman and the
present of the Sioux Falls Central Labor Council. Katy, a high
schooler, said that although she couldn’t vote, she urged everyone to
vote no to protect the health and safety of young women.
In
response to criticism that the abortion ban “goes too far” in its
restrictions, one of the tactics of the ban’s supporters has been to
claim that the law provides exceptions for rape and incest victims.
Casey Marshall, a State Legislator, exposed this outright lie and said
that when the law was discussed and passed last year, amendments that
would have provided exceptions were rejected. The law’s one purpose,
she said, was to have no exceptions – for rape, incest or the woman’s
health – in order to challenge Roe before the Supreme Court.
I
spoke with a woman pharmacist who had joined the rally on her lunch
hour. “I have three girls,” she said, and between them, “they have
given birth, had an abortion, adopted a child – all because they had a
choice.”
One man had his jacket open and was wearing a T-shirt
that had a picture of Bush standing in front of the American flag
holding a cross, and the words, “When fascism comes to America it will
be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” He said he’d ordered it
from the internet, that he didn’t know about World Can’t Wait but would
check out the website. Several women came up and wanted to know where
I’d gotten the bright green “Drive Out the Bush Regime” button on my
coat. I told them about World Can’t Wait and gave them the new WCW
flyer.
As the rally ended and about a third of the crowd took
off on a short march to a busy intersection several blocks away, I
talked with a woman who had brought her high-school-aged daughter and
several of her daughter’s friends. She said when she told the teacher
why they wouldn’t be in school, the teacher had said that she wished
she could join them.
As we approached the intersection, another
woman told me about a second horrible measure on the South Dakota
ballot, a proposed amendment to the state constitution that says
marriage is between a man and a woman and prohibits the recognition of
“civil unions, domestic partnerships or quasi-marital relationships,”
affecting both gay and straight relationships. She agreed that it was
part of the same theocratic agenda as the abortion ban. But “people are
being energized,” she said. “People are now getting out and talking to
other people about what’s going on instead of just staying home and
complaining.”
When we got to the intersection, groups
positioned themselves at each of the four corners, held signs and
chanted loudly. I talked with students – mostly woman – from Augustana
(a private, Lutheran-affiliated college in Sioux Falls), the University
of SD at Vermillion (50 minutes south of Sioux Falls) and South Dakota
State University at Brookings ( 50 minutes north) who tried to drown
out the traffic chanting: “2-4-6-8 – We’re the Ones who Ovulate/Not the
church, not the state/Women must decide their fate!” Along with the
official “No on 6” signs, hand-lettered signs said “Keep Your Religion
off My Body” and “Keep Your Rosaries off My Ovaries.”
An
Augustana student said that there were both pro-choice and
anti-abortion groups on campus and there was a lot of debate about the
ban. “Women’s rights are more important than any candidate of either
party,” she said. “Government should have no say over these issues at
all.” And, she added, it’s important that people from different
religions speak out to show “you can be religious and be pro-choice.”
As
we began to march back towards the Campaign office, I asked one woman
about her carefully hand-written sign:”Women are not born Republican or
Democrat or Yesterday.” My mother made it, she said, because “women are
not stupid. They can decide for themselves what to do.”
The main
thrust of the Campaign for Healthy Families has been to expose how the
abortion ban has no exceptions, a disgusting exposure of just how far
these theocrats will go to control women. At the same time, there are
many who oppose the ban because they support a women’s right to make
her own reproductive choices without interference from church or state.
As I finished up this report, I began talking with a young woman
in the main library. She started railing against the ban and said that
if it was upheld it would mean going back to the day when women had
back alley abortions. “I know girls who have been raped,” she said, and
they need abortions. When I said I thought women needed to be able to
have abortions on demand with NO restrictions, she said, “yes….It may
just not be the right time in your life to have a child.” She said that
her friends were split over the issue, and that her mother, who she
said had had three abortions, had recently gotten involved with an
anti-abortion church and now regretted her previous decisions. Families
as well as the communityare split 50-50, she told me.
I’ll have more to say on this in my next report, including what happened at a packed-house debate on the ban Wednesday night.